SEO is Important, But Remember Your Visitors - What do you need?
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It wasn't just the main organization that redesigned its web site; some of the Make-a-Wish branches in specific states independently performed site redesigns, and I'll be taking a look at what they did as well. The first step, not surprisingly, is determining what you hope to get out of a site redesign. For example, when Make-a-Wish Connecticut decided to revamp its web site, it knew it wanted to "facilitate communication amongst current volunteers, and increase the organization's outreach to potential wish kids, volunteers, and donors," according to a press release from Fathom, the company that helped the organization with its redesign.
Communication between everyone who uses the site was crucial to the process. For example, the site now has a password-protected, interactive "Kids Zone" specifically for the Wish kids. It's a place where they can learn about wishes, share wish stories, and decide on wishes. "When we heard that many of the children have a difficult time deciding what to wish for, we wanted to help make a fun part of the process," explained Fathom Account Director Kimberly Mitola.
The Make-a-Wish Foundation of Northern Illinois also had some special needs. As a charitable organization, any money spent on marketing is money not spent on the kids, so this branch wanted to lower its costs by being able to update its own site as needed. It also wanted to lower its costs of doing business in general; Gorilla Polymedia, which helped the organization with its site redesign, created an extranet site to facilitate the foundation's work flow. And of course the organization didn't forget its visitors; it wanted to make it easy for all users to follow the wishes of children in which they're interested.
Gorilla Polymedia studied Make-a-Wish users both internally and externally. After it completed the study, it built an all-encompassing content management system in addition to the extranet. This meant that the organization's internal team could update its own site content without needing any software programming skills.
One challenge that could have been difficult was making sure the site wasn't depressing. These are sick children, true, but that's not really what Make-a-Wish is about. "We grant the wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions to enrich the human experience with hope, strength, and joy," says the web site. Here's an image of the Make-a-Wish Foundation of Northern Illinois' home page; you can judge for yourself whether Gorilla Polymedia succeeded:
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